Searching for Gay Heroes...

[Guest PrinceOfPersia]

Hi guys,

First time poster here! And as I read through some of the posts I was amazed by the sheer talent that was manifested in each story. But I was a little saddened by the fact that there are no stories about gay hereos. Permit me an explanation.

 

Alexander the Great - a man that conquered continents yet was only ever conquered by Hephestion's thighs (Hephestion being his lover...)

 

T.E. Lawrance - another hero, but as time went by, yearned for the companionship of his Arabian lover.

 

There are others out there, but as an 18 year old I am sick of hearing about "touching coming out stories". I think that we as a community need to hear inspiring stories about heroes - men that can conquer the world, or at least be a hero in deed and mindset - that just so happen to be attracted to men. I have maybe only one regret, and that is that when I was growing up, I knew not of heroes that were "like me" and rather the King Arthurs and other greats.

[Ender]

Well, Around here, there ARE stories about people in heroic situations who happen to be gay. dkstories's Mist of Fate comes to mind. His Do Over stories are also not about coming out.

 

Also, alot of authors draw from personal experience. The whole self-discovery phase and "coming out" are powerful parts of alot of our lives. Retellings of those formative events, and speculations on how things might have been had events been slightly different are bound to come up in alot of this type of literature.

 

Then there's the fact about G/L/B real life heroes getting little recognition that you mentioned. In most schools, the fact that Alexander and Lawrence had homosexual relationships is not exactly broadcast as much as the niceties of the personal lives of other historical figures are.

[notTed]

And, uh, for me, the point is that we ARE like King Arthur and other heroic figures from history. Who he slept w/is but a small portion of who he was. Just because he slept w/Guinivere rather than that hunk Lancelot doesn't make him more or less heroic. Was Arthur left- or right-handed? What color were his eyes? Who knows or more importantly, who cares? In the same way, hopefully, we can get to a place where who w/are attracted to is incidental to whether we are capable of heroics.

 

Excuse me, now, but, I have to go leap a tall building....

 

pax,

notTed

[shadows]

You've spotted a gap, why not fill it? Nobody's stopping you from writing it. In every genre you'll have your archetypes and the "touching coming out story" is definitely one of them. Thankfully, Gayauthors seems to be lacking in this department.

 

Dio writes sci-fi & fantasy and I'm not even sure if his main characters are gay yet. Their sex drives are incidental to their story, and imo that's better. A constant obsession with sex is unhealthy... or so I've been told.

 

I think that's what annoys me so very very much about the gay "culture"/scene and we are therefore in complete agreement. Sex doesn't define who you are, your sex and attraction are nothing compared to who you are and what you do with your abilities. If you allow yourself to willingly be defined by the color of your skin, your geographic location, your monetary income, or your sexuality than I'm not interested in getting to know you. The people who break the mold are the interesting ones in this world.

 

Note to self: Don't write forum messages at 2 AM

 

//shadows

[Myr]

Mary Stewert's version of the Arthurian Legend (the first two Books, "The Crystal Cave" and "The Hollow Hills") are chock full of ambiguous gayness. Probably one of the reasons I read them over and over again when I was a teen.

 

Mary Renault's published books "Fire From Heaven" and "The Persian Boy" are about Alexander's gayness and his world conquering.

 

I tend to prefer reading and writing in fantasy. I also like stories where the character happens to be gay, as opposed to gay being all the character is.

 

But like Shadow said... you see a missing area, please fill it in. We are always looking for more writers.

 

Myr

[reapersharvest]

I share your tastes and it's something I'm doing with my own story, Underworld, but I wouldn't reccomend it to you unless you're wiling to wait another millenium for an update. As far as epics go, there are few gay ones outside the sci-fi/fantasy realm, so I don't know if that's your taste, but they're there. If so, try Comicality's Gone From Daylight or even the Sci-Fi section of Nifty (few are willing to dig through those archives anymore, but they can yield gold).

[JamesSavik]

Gay people who face oppression and discrimination are heroic by definition.

 

It takes courage to stand up for yourself in the face of hatred and bigotry- much more courage than it takes to hide and conform.

[reapersharvest]

Gay people who face oppression and discrimination are heroic by definition.

 

It takes courage to stand up for yourself in the face of hatred and bigotry- much more courage than it takes to hide and conform.

 

I think that gay heroes are more introspective generally because of this. Sometimes readers hunger for something of a more grandiose and fantastical scale.

[JamesSavik]

I think that gay heroes are more introspective generally because of this. Sometimes readers hunger for something of a more grandiose and fantastical scale.

 

 

Well I guess that depends on what kind of hero you are looking for.

 

A fighter pilot with 20 kills? A pro quarterback with 35 TD passes a year? A barbarian with a big battle axe? An Olympic champion?

 

The heroic archetype usually battles some evil and triumphs through the use of force or wit. Beowulf for example. He fights the monster Grendel and restores his King's and peoples fortunes.

 

This begs a more interesting question that the authors here should think about: Is it a gay hero that is sought or a hero that happens to be gay?

 

Consider two works: Comicality's The Secret Dairy of Billy Chase and Dom's The Log Way

 

The protagonists in these two stories, Billy and Owen, are are ordinary teens dealing with their sexuality and all of the tricks and traps that come their way. They have faults, fears and quirks but they serve to make the characters more human.

 

Billy is a little self-absorbed and lives in his head a lot. He has a little trouble distinguishing between what is real and what he wishes were real.

 

Owen is reeling from the rejection and abuse by his father while he tries to rebuild his life. He learns that to live again, he has to take some risks despite his bitter experience.

 

Neither Billy or Owen is a Beowulf but they are very human. Their experiences, struggles, triumphs and failures are so very real that you can feel them.

 

There are many characters in gay fiction that behave heroically: Brian of Dewey's Brian and Pete is pretty heroic when he's not angsting himself to death. Evan of Driver's Plan series stories is also fairly heroic.

 

Just don't expect gay heroes to storm Normandy Beach. That's not to say there weren't gays there but the army wouldn't have let them play their little death games had they known.

 

Gays, as heros, fit an entirely different mold. Their struggles exist in several different dimensions at once: the physical, the emotional and the spiritual. Yes, there may be one or several "bad guys" but as often as not, the battle raging inside is every bit as ferocious as the battle in the playground.

 

Gays from different eras faced entirely different sets of challenges. The gay kid in 1950, 1970, 1990 and today are shaped by very different times, attitudes, social pressures and advantages or disadvantages created by their region. Even Today a gay person from rural Louisiana might have problems communicating with or relating to a gay person from New York, San Francisco or Toronto.

 

So where are the gay heros? They are all around but they are mostly invisible going about the business of living their lives.

[AFriendlyFace]

I think that's what annoys me so very very much about the gay "culture"/scene and we are therefore in complete agreement. Sex doesn't define who you are, your sex and attraction are nothing compared to who you are and what you do with your abilities. If you allow yourself to willingly be defined by the color of your skin, your geographic location, your monetary income, or your sexuality than I'm not interested in getting to know you. The people who break the mold are the interesting ones in this world.

 

//shadows

 

Excellently put Shadows. I pretty much agree with that whole paragraph word for word, and that's generally the point I'm trying to make as well. I can't stand people stereotyping others, but I also can't stand when people seem to purposely be living up to their stereotypes.

[Myr]

I like reading about heros, who happen to be gay.

It gets a little tiring watching movie after movie and reading book after book where the hero gets the girl, where the hero saves the princess, etc etc etc.

 

I like it when the hero saves the Prince. "Kirith Kirin" by Jim Grimsley is a really excellent book about coming of age of a teen, who happens to be gay, set in a fantasy world.

Myr

[wep363]

Gay Heroes, hmmmmmmmm! Real life i'd have to say gay people in NAZI germany. My stories (in the "Story Archive" -My Bodyguard- -Tossed Away Kid- and -Kid Cop- are full of Heroes. But to me a Heroes is a mother who waits tables to support her son. Or a Social Worker who directs a run away kid to a home.. Parents and friends that don't kick you when you are down. A boss who cares enough about you to pay for your health insurance. A teacher who can learn new things. Leaders who are responsiable for their actions. Thoes who die or have died in order that we might live!

[Howie]

as a (potentially) interesting side-note, i just read recently (and i doubt i'm the only one who's read it), that in the ultimate x-men universe (for those who don't know, 'ultimate' x-men is a new version of the adolescence and young-adulthood of the characters in the standard x-men universe) northstar (who is also gay in the 'real' x-men universe, but a lesser known character, coming, as he does from canada) and colossus (who is actually pretty straight in the real x-men universe) are now a couple.

 

possible, i've used too many brackets here.

 

maybe other people regard this as being of pretty low significance in the grand scheme of things, but as an avid fan of mainstream superhero comic books, i'm chuffed (ah, the wonders of british english!)

 

howie

[freakinrawr]

i dont have gay heros

haha

i really dont need heros

i creat my own path

 

-Fayt